Emil Klusmeier

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Emil Klusmeier (born July 27, 1912 in Bochum , † January 19, 1982 in Bochum) was a German naval officer and submarine commander in World War II , then a businessman .

Life

Before the war

Born and raised in Bochum, the young Emil Klusmeier joined the German Imperial Navy in 1930 . After the Wehrmacht was founded, it was renamed the Kriegsmarine on June 1, 1935 . From October 1937 to September 1940 he served there in the submarine fleet with the rank of chief helmsman (ObStrm). From 1938 to 1939 he was a watch officer on U 5 under the command of Kapitänleutnant (KptLt.) Günter Kutschmann.

During the war

In October 1940 he was posted to the staff of the Commander of the U-Boats (BdU). From January to April 1944 he completed commanders training courses and was then transferred as a commanding student to U 963 under Oberleutnant (Oblt.zS) Karl Boddenberg. The boat ran during the time of the Allied Operation Overlord ( landing in Normandy in June 1944, also called " D-Day ") from only a short three-day trip.

Back on land, Klusmeier went through the building instructions for the then new and ultra-modern type XXIII electric submarines in July 1944 . On October 16, 1944, he became the commander of U 2340 . The keel of the boat was laid on August 18, 1944 at the Deutsche Werft in Finkenwärder ( spelling at that time ) and the launch took place in the same year on September 28. Shortly afterwards it was put into service under Oblt.zS Emil Klusmeier , who had meanwhile been promoted to officer . He began with the training of the crew and test drives in the Baltic Sea within the 32nd U-Flotilla .

The submarine bunker Fink II in Hamburg-Finkenwärder with a capsized submarine in the foreground (photo 1945)
Post-war photo of U 2367 (then NATO designation S 171 ), a structurally identical sister submarine of U 2336

On March 31, 1945, his boat, lying in the port of Hamburg , was badly damaged in an air raid by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and sank. At the same time, the U-boats ( Type VIIc ) U 348 , U 350 , U 1131 and U 1167 were destroyed by bombs . The commander of U 2336 , Oblt.zS Jürgen Vockel, was fatally injured by fragments in this bombing attack , while his boat, type XXIII, remained undamaged. The next day, April 1, 1945, Emil Klusmeier was promoted to lieutenant captain (KptLt.) And took over command of U 2336 on the same day, succeeding Vockel .

Under the command of Kapitänleutnant Emil Klusmeier, U 2336 carried out its only patrol from April 18 to May 14, 1945 . After it left Kiel on April 18, it first set course for Kristiansand . It reached the Norwegian port city on April 23rd and left it again on May 1st with the operational destination Scottish east coast. On the evening of May 7 1945 sighted Klusmeier before the Firth of Forth to the British convoy EN 491 belonging freighter Avondale Park (2878 BRT ) (position) and Sneland I (1791 BRT) (position) and she sank shortly before 23:00 each a torpedo . These were the last sinks ever made by a German submarine in World War II.

Despite intense pursuit by British destroyers and several attacks by depth charges , which U 2336 survived almost unscathed, Klusmeier managed to escape the Firth of Forth the next morning after protecting the boat from the depth charges near a rock, and crew and Guide boat home safely. U 2336 entered Kiel, which was already occupied by British soldiers, late in the evening on May 14, 1945.

After the war

Shortly after the arrival, Klusmeier was accused by the British of having deliberately disregarded the general order issued by Karl Dönitz at the time of the two torpedo hits, namely not to carry out any more attacks. Klusmeier has always asserted that he did not receive this order in time. In view of the fact that his modern electric submarine could operate under water for up to three days without surfacing, and the submarines were not able to receive radio messages when submerged, his statement can be assessed as credible.

The British, who on the morning of May 15, allowed Klusmeier to formally decommission his boat by speaking to his crew and then lowering the war flag , believed him. Although he was arrested and had to undergo a number of interrogations and would undoubtedly have been sentenced to death if a war crime had been proven , he was released in July 1945 after two months of British captivity .

After being a prisoner of war , he returned to his hometown Bochum, where he and his wife Elisabeth ("Lisa") ran a household goods store in the Wiemelhausen district of Brenscheder Str. 49 for many years . They later opened a second shop in Vietingsweg 1 (today Rüsenacker 1), here for home improvement .

For his later activities as a commercial judge and his entrepreneurial achievements, he received the Federal Cross of Merit in 1981 from Federal President Karl Carstens . A photo of Emil Klusmeier with his grandson Christian could be seen in many newspapers .

Emil Klusmeier died at the age of 69.

literature

  • Eberhard Rössler : submarine type XXIII. 2nd, expanded edition. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-7637-6236-1 , pp. 109-112.
  • Eberhard Rössler: From the original to the model. Submarine type XXIII. A picture and plan documentation. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 1993, pp. 37-38, ISBN 3-7637-6007-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Emil Klusmeier in uboat.net (English), accessed on April 16, 2018.
  2. ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945. Volume 1: The German submarine commanders. ES Mittler und Sohn, Hamburg et al. 1996, ISBN 3-8132-0490-1 , p. 164.
  3. ↑ Eberhard Rössler: U-boat type XXIII. 2nd, expanded edition. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-7637-6236-1 , pp. 109-112.
  4. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945, May 1945 , accessed on February 16, 2018.
  5. ^ Emil Klusmeier: Log of the U 2336 . Ed .: family owned.
personal data
SURNAME Klusmeier, Emil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Bochum
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1982
Place of death Bochum